Anansi (We All Have Tales) - Hardcover

Kindergarten-Grade 6-- Retellings of two Jamaican stories. The first tells how Anansi came to possess all stories, and the second tells of his plan to seem important at his mother-in-law's funeral. The selections follow one after another in the book, as they would in the oral tradition, with no separation or demarcation. The prose is spare and droll as befits trickster tales in which creatures such as Anansi can be both wise and foolish. The illustrations are bright, modern, stylized paintings. The bug-eyed, wildly dressed, top-hatted spider/man plays off against other more naturally represented animal characters and a simple tropical backdrop. Denzel Washington uses Jamaican dialect and narrates in the present tense (the book uses past tense), capturing the rhythms of Caribbean storytelling. UB40 provides lively reggae accompaniment. Gail Haley's A Story, A Story (Atheneum, 1970) is an African version of the opening tale, and Gerald McDermott's Anansi the Spider (Holt, 1972) is also West African. Students may wish to compare these picture-book versions of African stories with their Caribbean counterparts. --Barbara Chatton, College of Education, University of Wyoming, Laramie
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